Russian colleges raise more money than US rivals

Recent rankings look at the relationship between business and science in different countries

Russian universities have come close to joining the top 10
of the Thomson Reuters/Times Higher Education World Academic Summit Innovation
Index of corporate contributions per researcher. Russia placed 11th,
with $36,500, ahead of the United States ($25,800), Hong Kong ($20,000),
Germany ($14,900) and Israel ($13,600).

This category looks at university research income, scaled
against research staff numbers and normalized for purchasing-power parity for
each university (as opposed to using foreign exchange rates, because one U.S.
dollar buys different amounts of goods and services in different countries) .

Experts say Russia’s place in the ranking appears quite high.
This is largely because analysts only looked at investments in the World
University Rankings Top 400 universities. Leading Russian universities do receive
a lot of money from business, but the overall picture is far from rosy.

That being said, certain positive trends have emerged as
well: Most Russian universities have been establishing special divisions to
manage intellectual property and commercialize research.

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According to Investcafe analyst Timur Nigmatullin, Russia’s
place in the ranking is well deserved, especially considering its
purchasing-power parity methodology.

“Examples of research conducted by Russian universities
include Moscow State University’s successful studies of modern deep-water
geological processes on the fringes of continents, or development of oil and gas
software for supercomputers,” Nigmatullin said. “Moscow Engineering and Physics
Institute has successfully developed composite nuclear fuel tablets, highly
efficient materials for nuclear power plant neuron catchers and capsule complexes
for endoscopic examinations.”

Published by Times Higher Education magazine (Britain), with data
supplied by Thomson Reuters, the Times Higher Education World University
Rankings (or THE World University Rankings) are regarded as of the most
influential annual world university rankings.

Originally developed in 2010, the
Times Higher Education has replaced Times Higher Education–QS World University
Rankings, which began publishing in 2004 with Quacquarelli Symonds.